Free will is a principle within the universal matrix we exist under and for the most part we get to exercise our free will. For our purposes, this has given us the option to adhere to the qualities of love and unity inherent within the energy of creative force we emerged from, or to not adhere to them.

Our Unconscious Influences Affect True Free Will

Our unconscious influences act upon us without our permission. When under the influence of unconscious influences, we may think and feel we are exercising free will when making choices, decisions, or acting upon an impulse, but we are not truly utilizing the gift of free will,

Unconscious influences can affect our emotions and sensory systems. Neediness may come into play, or unconscious influences such as our default position, protection mechanisms, or perceived needs may override our intentions. This may cause us to act in ways we had not intended. Our good intentions may fall to the wayside.

(This article/blog post is based on concepts in my book Your Journey to Peace, Bridging the Gap Between Religion, Spirituality, Psychology, and Science. Book Synopsis is found here).

Unconscious Influences Can Derail Conscious Choice

Our good intentions are often overruled by our unconscious influences. For example, we may decide we will be kind and patient to our parent on this visit ̶ even though the relationship is strained. However, when we get together we blow up or give him or her attitude. Some unconscious influence has overridden our decision to be kind and patient with our parent. Our default position (reactionary state) or a protective mechanism (defensive systems we have built up) may have come into play and our free will and its power for conscious decision is unduly swayed: we were not nice to our parent.

We may decide we want to get healthy, but often succumb to overeating, make unhealthy food choices, or drink too much whenever we feel sad, lonely, angry, or stressed. We may be feeding our neediness or have fallen into poor-me attitudes. This derails us from our desire to get healthy. Unconscious influences or undealt with emotions have hijacked our free will.

Life-lessons, Our Higher Purpose, and Free Will

We all manifested here on earth with lessons to learn this lifetime as part of our soul’s journey. And they are all geared towards us choosing love and its qualities over fear and its qualities. We do have free will to learn ̶ or not learn ̶ the lessons put before us at any point in time, however, the specific life-lessons will continue to be presented to us until we do learn them. So, in the long run, we do not have free will regarding the lessons we chose before we incarnated. The details of how they show up in our lives may change, but the general theme remains the same.

For example, if part of our soul’s journey in this lifetime is to learn patience, within our relationships, or at our job, opportunities will come up that will test our patience. We will have free will to choose to exercise patience ̶ or not to ̶ within each scenario. However, should we decide not to and leave the relationship or job without learning the lesson, other situations will show up in our life where we are given opportunities to learn patience.

As well as soul lessons, many of us come here with a higher purpose that must be adhered to. And sometimes, certain aspects of our higher purpose cannot be overruled. Its Spirit’s / our higher Self’s job to overlook the process. It gently guides us to fulfill what we came here for.

If what we want or want to do is not congruent to the higher purpose we are to fulfill, we may not get what we want or our attempts to do something counterproductive to it may fail.

For example, our higher purpose may be to do something for society or the Planet and part of our soul’s plan to fulfill this role would be that we would not have children. Our higher Self knows this, and if we are balanced we would not be inclined to want children, However, if something in our upbringing caused us to be needy and this translated into a desperation to have children, it may just not come about.

We never know God’s full plan for our lives. From our limited perspective we may feel we want something that will not ultimately serve us or our higher perspective life-plan, and Spirit may step in.

Even when we attempt to stick to the path of our soul’s journey or life purpose and we start with good intentions, we may still get caught up in situations that derail us. At some point, Spirit may intervene and create situations that put us back on the path.

Depending on the circumstances, and how often and how far we have gotten off-track from the lessons we chose to learn or from our life purpose, unfortunate mishaps, relationship breakups, loss of a job, and even illnesses may be our soul’s way of urging us onto a path we are not adhering to, but that we chose before coming into the world.